Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that allows communication between computers and network-enabled devices. It is enabled by default on millions of devices, from routers to printers to IP cameras and network storage servers. UPnP support is also enabled by default on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and many distributions of Linux.

In its research, Rapid7 declares (PDF) that the UPnP protocol "suffers from a number of basic security problems" ranging from a lack of authentication implemented by device manufacturers to privileged common programming flaws plague common UPnP software implementations. These issues, the report notes, are endemic across UPnP-enabled applications and network devices.

According to Rapid7's HD Moore, the two most commonly used UPnP software libraries both contained remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. "In the case of the Portable UPnP SDK, over 23 million IPs are vulnerable to remote code execution through a single UDP packet," Moore noted. "All told, we were able to identify over 6,900 product versions that were vulnerable through UPnP. This list encompasses over 1,500 vendors and only took into account devices that exposed the UPnP SOAP service to the internet, a serious vulnerability in of itself."